Monday, August 30, 2010

According to Lovecraft, humans can never fully understand Cthulhu because his very existence is beyond mortal comprehension. Lovecraft's universe contains many creatures that are equally incomprehensible. Some of these are known as the Great Old Ones, or the Old Ones, and are powerful, ageless beings from beyond the stars. Though Lovecraft used the phrase "the Great Old Ones" in contradictory ways, most of his fans accept that Cthulhu is one of these extraterrestrial beings that only partially exist in our dimension.

A friend sent me this.----
"They say that the hour of three A.M. is the time when spirits can become active, and I’m sure of that. My apartment was always a little too quiet for one in the city, especially at night. No drunk shouting in the street at that time, no sound of car horns and alarms could penetrate the dark at that particular hour. It’s like my apartment was high on a platform, surrounded only by a dense fog that the sharpest of hawk eyes couldn’t penetrate. I was usually attempting to sleep at that time, after bleaching my skin in the pure electric light of my computer screen. Emphasis on the phrase attempting, because from that stems this tale. I advise you, if you’ve been here long enough to find it, you’ll soon discover of what I’m talking about. I should really tell you anyway, just so you know you’re not insane. I know I’m not.

Every night for the past four months that I decided to make this apartment my home, a strange sound would pierce the strange blur that surrounded my home– or maybe just my mind. I have searched the apartment many times for it, but behind the hollow-sounding ivory walls and hard pine floors, I couldn’t find any source. The sound, at first, was like scratching. If you have fingernails, drag them along a table. Like that. It was slow, and every time I heard it, I froze up. It wasn’t as dramatic as anything like ghostly moaning or anything like that, but it still scared me so much I reverted back to childhood and stuck my head under the blanket.

During the day I worked at what could possibly be the most boring place on earth, a factory that stamped out cans. They didn’t even need workers, but I really didn’t care. It paid the bills, and getting to sit around until someone needed help fixing a machine wasn’t too bad. I sort of miss it. There was always something bad happening though; in retrospect, I feel as though it was following me. For instance, a man’s hand ended up being caught in the stamping machine under a sheet of aluminum. The crunch was sickening, it sounded like a dog chewing upon a bone. That same splintering sound.

Every night, I would retire from this slightly gory boredom to my apartment, back to my beloved computer. The cycle was always the same. Work, computer, scratching sound. I never really thought to ask anyone about it, I would usually forget about it by morning.

But one day I didn’t. I sat there in my folding chair at work, surrounded by the drab, bleak grey concrete walls, a long ignored cigarette that was gradually becoming one trembling tower of ashes in my grasp, trying to think of a way to discover whatever this thing was. Why wouldn’t I just follow it? Get my nerves together and find the continual source of fear for me. It made me cold just at the thought, but I knew I had to do it.

So that night, I turned off the computer as usual, but then took one extra step. I grabbed a flashlight. It would be faster than dashing across the room to my light switch. ‘It could even be mice,’ I thought to myself as I slipped into bed, wearing the hero’s garb of any sleepy man; a pair of boxers and socks. At least if I ran crying out of the building, a few people could get a laugh.

The clock slowly began to head towards three o’clock. My heart began to pound nervously. Like a sword I held the turned-off flashlight to my bare chest. The necklace around my neck felt strangely cold, even though I had at least three comforters on. Oh, the joys of a particularly cold winter. Closing my eyes, I heard the scratching. Slowly it got louder. My hand began to shake, but I kept my eyes shut. Why wasn’t I turning on the light? Why wasn’t I looking? Because there was a new sound. A tinkling, strange shaking, like a maraca full of metal instead of beans or beads.

A loud thunk against my door made me leap up. Turning on the flashlight, I managed to run to the light switch and flick it on as well. With an icy, trembling hand, I opened the door.

What I saw will never leave my mind. There was the source of my fear, the thing that had somehow invaded my home. An oddly small, waif-like creature, like a starving child with skin that was too pale. It was like a corpse dropped in water, for its skin was tinged with blue. Every vein was visible. Oh, how I wanted to gag at the sight. But it gets worse. Strategically placed in this demented creature’s flesh, long metal nails were embedded. Through the tips of its fingers and toes, sticking out of its neck and shoulders, down its chest and out of its eyes. They were everywhere. How loudly I screamed, I didn’t know. Would anyone hear it through the fog surrounding my house? Would I hear it? I couldn’t stop staring. The dried, cracking blood against that decaying flesh brought up my earlier meal, and a gushing hot river of vomit poured out of my mouth onto the ground.

I backed up as the creature took a step. Its lank hair was missing in chunks, and as it stepped closer, its feet dragged upon the floor, the nails in them making…a scratching sound. Why I had to keep my room in a state of continual chaos, I don’t know, but the mess was astounding. Of course I fell. Scrambling back, I stared in horror at the dead thing.

It didn’t move right, I realized. It didn’t just walk. Its motions were snappy and disjointed, and one foot dragged behind it while the other advanced towards me. In its hand, there was a heavy, rusted hammer, dripping with what I hope was water. It was slightly rust-colored. I couldn’t bear to see it, but in the other, there was a plastic grocery bag that sagged and poked out with the weight within it, like if someone hung a porcupine from a diaper. I felt the wall against my back. The creature moved forward; I was paralyzed with fear at the sight of it. It was so grotesque. In front of me, it stopped. I noticed the puncture marks upon its tiny calves where the nails were, and I felt a strange sense of pity.

The bag in its hand split a little, and the sight of what was within made me let out an audible, and most likely bile-scented groan. A nail jutted out. I cried out loudly as the thing pounced upon me, as I felt the first nail go into my eye, it was worse. Through the blood blocking my vision, I could see its tiny mouth pull back in a widely-toothed smile, the nails in its lips making them split and gush rotten black blood down onto me. I moaned in pain again as another nail entered my second eye. Blindly I swatted, but it was to no avail. Perhaps it would be over soon. Perhaps death would be better than being tormented by this rotten thing. But still, the nails entered. Still I cried out loudly, especially when I was dragged. I couldn’t see where, but damn, it hurt.

It’s gone now, the nailed child. I don’t know where it went, but I know somewhere, it will be coming out at three o’clock. And so will I.

I think you ought to check your clock, because it looks like this bag in my hand is about to split.

Vagina dentata is Latin for toothed vagina. Various cultures have folk tales about women with toothed vaginas, frequently told as cautionary tales warning of the dangers of sex with strange women and to discourage the act of rape.

The concept is also of importance in classical psychoanalysis, where it is held to relate to the unconscious fears associated with castration anxiety.

You can watch "Teeth" on my movie player under the On Demand button at: http://tv.zeroboy.net/savagenugget

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Friday, August 27, 2010

Perhaps you have heard the legend of the supposed “holy hour” that occurs on certain days of the year: Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, November 1, and the first of both February and August, each day between 7 and 8 am (not including Daylight Savings Time, mind you, because it is a human invention and supernatural entities do not observe it). When you were a kid, this was the hour in which you probably opened Christmas presents and started tearing apart your Easter basket after dragging your parents out of bed, and much to your parents’ chagrin refused to eat anything but leftover Halloween candy from the day before for breakfast; however, more than likely you had never gone into a darkened room in preparation for this ritual. However, perhaps you’ve heard others speak of it.

Go into a room with a mirror, preferably one without windows, between 7 and 8 am on any one of the dates listed above. You do not have to perform this ritual alone; if you have any friends, you may in fact want them to come in with you to help you perform specific tasks outlined that are difficult to do in the dark. (Important: The only light in this ritual must come from either a candle or a lighter - some tiny, flickering flame. Save for this light, you must be in total darkness - otherwise there is a strong possibility that you won’t see anything, hence the suggestion that you perform this in a room without windows. However, it all depends on your own sensitivity to the paranormal; when my friend performed this ritual last November 1, we had to shut all the doors in the hallway first because the light from the doorcrack kept distracting him.) Make sure that you perform this ritual in comfortable clothing - you want to avoid any unnecessarydiscomfort.

Once inside this room, close the door and light your candles and/or your lighter. This/these flame(s) must remain lit until the end of the ritual, although I know of people who have chickened out and blown the flames out which instantly ends it and generally leaves them wallowing in their own cowardice for days on end afterwards. You may have your friend(s) hold or light the candles or lighter if desired, as long as the flame is reflected in the mirror. Now begin chanting some Christian prayer - any one will do, even the “Sinner’s Prayer” on the back of those Chick Tracts, as long as it mentions God, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost at least once - as you stare into the mirror. It must be the same prayer and, again, the number of times you need to chant this prayer varies depending on your own sensitivty to the paranormal, but generally twenty times is more than enough. (My friend chose Our Father, and he needed to chant it fifteen or sixteen times.)

When you have chanted for long enough, one of your flames will flare and then change color. (Ours turned red, but I’ve heard of flames turning blue, white, and even green and lavender before.) A few seconds later, an image will appear in the mirror of the archangel Michael - he looks a lot like the usual images of Christian angels, only he has this really nasty burn mark on the left side of his face. Also, he has really deep-set eyes.

Bow to Michael; again, it is important to make sure you don’t accidentally put out your flame(s) unless you wish to end the ritual. After you bow to him, Michael will ask you if you are entirely certain that you want to perform this ritual. I can’t really describe the voice, but it’s not the sort of voice you’d expect an archangel to have: it’s kind of scratchy and overall not very pleasant to listen to, and he has a faint accent of indeterminable origin.

After you answer yes, Michael will explain the conditions of the ritual: he will ask you seven questions, and if you answer at least four of them right, he will either allow or a conversation with a deceased loved one or give a living one immortality; however, if you answer three or fewer of them correctly, he will slit your throat and you will die right then and there. (I’ll admit that I actually do not remember any of the seven riddles from when my friend did this, but I do remember that they were rather arcane - i.e., not the type of riddles you would find in a riddle book - and he seemed to be fully aware of this. Also, if I remember correctly, each one consisted of seven words.) My friend never did well at riddles, so you can imagine that he didn’t get any right, which seemed to amuse the hell out of Michael, as by the end of the ritual he had this big, terrifying Joker-like smile on his face.

After you are finished answering the riddles (you only get one try at each, but he lets you think), Michael gives you the score. Again, if you answer three or fewer right, he smites you. While he smites you, he says something in the angel language - Enochian, I believe it’s called - and you’re left writhing on the floor in agony. My friend was screaming his head off when the ritual was over, and he started speaking in tongues; it was horrible and I’m currently in therapy for this. Really fucking horrifying.

But I digress. Anyway, the candles all went out, and the lighter he had me hold died at the exact same time. I left the room feeling dizzy, and passed out on my bed in my own vomit. Strange thing is I woke up eight hours later and went into the bathroom I performed the ritual in, and found no trace of my dead friend in there. Strange, I live alone and all my doors and windows were locked, there was no sign of anyone having broken into my apartment, the landlady was on vacation, and no matter how hard I looked in the bathroom I could not find a single trace of my friend’s blood anywhere.

A few days later, I got a call from his roommate, asking about my friend. According to his roommate, my friend disappeared on Halloween night and hadn’t been seen at all since. He had called all around, asking my friend’s parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, people like the guy at the convenient store where my friend bought his cigarettes, and even his old teachers from grade school if they knew anything about his whereabouts, only to get a resounding “no.” He decided to call me because apparently I was the only person out of the people both he and my friend knew that he hadn’t called yet. So I told him exactly what happened, down to my friend’s body mysteriously disappearing. He didn’t believe me, and reported me to the police, but, when the police came to investigate, they did not find any trace of my friend either, not even his DNA. It’s almost like he never came over my house and instead chose to fall off the face of the earth and leave his friendsbehind.

On a side note, I’ve heard that someone in fact, by some miracle, did get all of the riddles right, and they wished for the immortality of whoever. However, the next day their loved one was not alive. They, much like my friend, were mysteriously spirited away, only this time on the wall of their room there was a message in some mysterious language, written in blood. Perhaps only God and the archangel Michael know what has become of the two of them.

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of in 1888 London The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".

Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard. The "From Hell" letter, received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".

This journal was found in the attic of a fully furnished and abandoned town house in 2007 next to the last purported owner’s death certificate.

I.

My life is so perfect that it scares me. I see smiling faces from my wife and coworkers, my boss tells me that I’m doing a fine job, and the pastor pulls me up in front of the choir to set an example for the congregation.

They know nothing of my desire. If my priest knew what I was meddling in, he would condemn me to the fires of hell.

When my life was difficult, I felt more alive. Each day when I open my eyes as a successful family man, I feel as though I’ve slipped one rung further on a downward spiral of age, wrinkles, and systematic failure of my body as it repeats a daily crucible of perfection that most would envy.

I know some are jealous of my life when they see me on the street, and yet I would trade life, limb, and soul to live in their shoes for one day.

I crave INTENSITY.

The easy life is mind numbing.

II.

Routine, routine, routine. Every day is exactly the same as the one before it. There are a few minor details that I barely have a measure of control over. I can order a ham and swiss instead of a turkey and pepper jack for lunch, and I can scratch my dog’s left ear before his right. Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, Budweiser Select, Sam Adams Summer Ale. It doesn’t matter if I fuck my wife from behind, if I finish up on her glasses, or if she swallows.

Drunk is drunk. Pussy is pussy.

Everything is always the same. Soon, I’m going to try it.

I’ve waited long enough.

III.

This is the last week I’m going to keep myself locked in this prison of endless repetition. I have all my affairs in order. I’ve written a note to my family and provided for everything and everyone.

In case I get senile, this is a typical morning in my life on a normal day.

I wake up at five thirty on the dot because my bones have internal timers in them, and my hip catches on fire at around five thirty four. I take a swig of mouthwash on my way to the toilet to save time, and I spend a three minute stretch swishing Listerine through my mouth and managing to squeeze out inconsistent bursts of urine. I’ve had to prop my hand against the wall since I was fifty. Standing straight up to piss is beyond me these days.

My third young trophy wife Margerie can only make decent eggs over easy, and sunny side up is out of the question unless we go out. The bacon is microwaved for two minutes and thirty seconds because although her rack is perfect, she can’t cook to save her life. She spends every morning breakfast session explaining to me that my children from previous marriages are ungrateful and deserve to be cut out of my last will and testament. This all comes while I’m chewing spongy bacon and drinking cofee that tastes like engine oil.

By seven thirty, after I’ve shit, showered, and shaved, I’m in my boring Saab, puttering twenty minutes to work on economy cruise control. This twenty minute window is the highlight of my day. There’s no traffic, the morning show I listen to is sometimes funny, and I take my first valium as soon as my rear tires hit Nutwood Street.

For the record, my life was once gritty and unpolished, but also glamorous in a way that it was poetic. I miss being piss poor, living paycheck to paycheck, and not knowing what the next day would hold in store. I miss my first marriage, when everything was new, including some positions that I can’t do anymore because my fake hip would crucify me with pain for trying. I miss my 1970 Oldsmobile 442 that got six miles to the gallon. It was a one fifty five big block with a superstroke and a twelve second ignition top out. You felt like you were going to die if you lost even a smidgeon of control on a country road.

I was young then. It all comes back to age.

Old people all go out the same way. Heart attack, stroke, brain aneurism, cancer.

I want to be different.

It’s still sitting on my mantlepiece, but it doesn’t have to beg me anymore.

I’ll soon be determined to take it down and use it of my own free will.

IV.

I did it. I’ve been carrying it in my jacket pocket. I can feel how cold it is through my shirt.

In case I lose my mind, let me describe a normal work day, more for myself than for you. I am the second in command under a tyrannical office crone by the name of Jana. She runs a tight ship and she’s only been in the business for five years. She inherited the company from her father —- my old business partner. Soon, she had the support of everyone else, and I became the sideshow with some measure of plastic authority. She still wields the iron rod.

I usually sneak a second valium in for the morning meetings, and I smile and nod more than anything else. I make Jana feel like her ideas are good, like the employeees actually care about what she has to say. When we break for lunch, I use my hour to go to one of five places.

I can’t go anywhere the costs more than eight bucks. I made one hundred and sixty two thousand dollars last year, but Margerie doesn’t put out for me if I eat expensive food without her. She IS a trophy wife, after all. My choices are always limited to the Taco Bell Pizza Hut two in one, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or the China Spring. The best deli in town is open before three, three blocks down, and I get to eat there once a week when our meetings cut short. They always have to put the meat back out because I stroll in at two fifty eight, and they glare at me with the utmost loathing. There’s no telling how many pastrami and loogie sandwiches I’ve had, courtesy of Jana’s rambling motor mouth.

When I get back from lunch, Jana is always gone, and I spend three hours walking around the office and telling my employees how good they are at their jobs. The truth is, some of them really ARE good, and they know they deserve a raise. I have to tell them that I need more out of them because Jana is too much of a tightwad bitch to pay them higher salaries. She saves the extra cash for botox and the newest Corvette every year.

No matter how good my day at work is, it ends in absolute frustration. I live eighteen miles from my office in the city, but in five thirty traffic, it takes me ninety minutes to get in to my driveway.

The best day at work I ever had was the last day for one of our interns, Sally. It was about ten years ago, but I still remember when she unzipped my fly, pulled out my cock, snorted a line of cocaine off of it, and then drained me dry.

It took me two hours to get home because of a jack knifed tractor trailer that day. Work always ends on a bad note, even when Sally is there for your afternoon delight.

I hope my wife doesn’t find this diary if something goes wrong. I never cheated to hurt her. I just like to feel intense. This fucking crazy thing is so cold in my pocket now that I have a red spot on my chest from where my skin is chafing against my shirt. I think I’ll sleep with it under my pillow tonight.

A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based onpsychological gratification.Often, a sexual element is involved with the killings. The murders may have been attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims may have had something in common; for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group.